With pitchers and catchers just around the corner, I thought it was time to get a Reds thread started. Sorry if I'm stepping on anyone's toes.

Seeing weakness in the division especially with the departures of Albert Pujols from the Cardinals and Prince Fielder from the Brewers (along with a 50 game suspension for Ryan Braun), GM Walt Jocketty has gone all in this season in an attempt to win the Reds 2nd division crown in 3 years. Trades for Mat Latos and Sean Marshall, while expensive in prospects, help shore up the pitching staff and getting Ryan Madson on an extremely team-friendly one year deal may have been the steal of the offseason.

This team has a World Series champion ceiling, but a lot of questions as well. I'll post my usual preseason summary soon, but please feel free to share your thoughts, analyses and predictions here.

The future is now in Cincinnati. With decisions to make soon on the contracts of Brandon Philips and Joey Votto, with the clock running out on Scott Rolen, and with key personnel losses by the Cardinals and Brewers, the youth of the Pirates and the moribundity of the Astros, the Reds brain trust have clearly decided that their best shot at a playoff run is this year.

Probably the biggest trade of the offseason, the Latos deal was expensive in talent - but talent that was largely blocked in Cincinnati. The key piece from the Padres perspective was Alonzo. He wasn't going to oust Votto from first base and isn't really suited defensively for the outfield, but he has very good power, excellent plate discipline, and should be at least adequate defensively at 1B. He will likely immediately start for the Padres and is the guy who is most likely to make the Reds regret this deal. But there was plenty more talent sent on top of that. Yasmani Grandal would be rated as the top catching prospect in most systems, with advanced offensive skills for his age (though his defense could use some polish), but was deemed expendable due to the presence of both Ryan Hanigan and Devin Mesoraco. Boxberger is a work-in-progress, who walked 4.1 batters/inn. but still managed a better than 3:1 k/bb ratio. Volquez was the final piece of the trade. Acquired in the Joey Hamilton trade, Volquez followed a stellar 2008 season, with 3 seasons of mediocrity built around injuries, a PED suspension, and griping. Likely considered addition-by-subtraction in Cincinnati, he will likely be asked to be a back-of-the-rotation innings eater for the Padres and anything more than that will be gravy.

This team is once again extreeeemely right-handed, so it seems very odd to stack the 2 lefties in the lineup. However - barring a Manny sighting - there really isn't anyone else in the lineup with a chance to protect Votto, though if Rolen shows anything they may flip-flop. The Reds need Bruce to take a big step up, Rolen to come back from injury to an approximation of his former self, and Stubbs to learn the difference between a ball and a strike to have a shot at going deep into the postseason.

In addition to Manny there are a few free agents out there who still could be signed, some of whom (Damon/Matsui) could be plugged (reluctantly) into left field and help break up the righty fest. That would allow them to use Ludwick as a 4th outfielder; a role for which he is probably better suited. Dioner Navarro may also make the roster if they want Mesoraco to get more seasoning in the minors, but he should really be listed as a switch-misser because he hits almost as bad as Nick Punto.

Latos comes in to anchor the rotation. He is moving from pitcher-friendly Petco to the Great American Bandbox, but has shown no large differential in his home/road splits so there is cause for optimism here. Cueto had his best statistical season in 2011, albeit injury-shortened. Two causes for concern are that he has not yet had a 200 inning season, and his strikeout and walk rates are somewhat pedestrian. Leake was a revelation in 2011, going 8-4 by the All-Star break. His underlying stats were actually better in the second half, which portends well for the coming year. The back end of the rotation has more questions than answers at this point: can old friend Arroyo bounce back at age 35 from one of his worst seasons? Can Homer Bailey stay healthy enough to put together the kind of season people once expected of him? Can Aroldis Chapman make the conversion from the bull-pen to the rotation? If not, the options beyond these aren't pretty. The corpses of Jeff Francis and Brett Tomko wait in the wings.

Great expectations are being placed on the bullpen for 2012. The switch from Cordero to Madson is likely to be a wash, with youth replacing experience in the closer role. Newcomer Sean Marshall should team up with Bill Bray to provide a potent southpaw punch, while the Reds are expecting a resurgent Nick Masset to lead the righties in the pen. Given the lack of innings-eaters in the starting rotation, a great deal of the success or failure of this team will be on the pen's collective shoulders.

It's hard to say which of these will break camp with the Reds at this point; the only certainty would seem to be Francisco, who is out of options. Valdez would seem likely, as the Reds traded for him for this purpose, and the opposite ends of the "platoons" in LF and C. Everyone else seem pretty fungible. Assuming that Chapman starts the year in AAA and that the Reds carry 12 pitchers, that would leave Janish, Frazier, Harris and Cairo fighting it out for the last spot. I'd guess one of the latter, as Dusty seems to love the "scrappy old guy" on his bench, and Cairo has done the most recently of those two.

Fearless Prediction:

92-70, win NL CentralBeat the Braves in the NLDSLose to the Phillies in the NLCS

The Reds bullpen took a huge blow when closer Ryan Madson was diagnosed with a torn elbow ligament on Saturday. He will undergo Tommy John surgery and miss the season. Internal candidates to fill in as the closer would be Sean Marshall, Nick Masset, and Aroldis Chapman - probably in that order. An external candidate could be Oriole Kevin Gregg, who old friend Dan Duquette is currently shopping. It's difficult to decide what would be worse - having Kevin Gregg as your closer, or having him jump up and down on your testicles while wearing spikes ...

Votto rumored to be discussing a $200 million extension. Forbes just valued the Reds at $424 million. Assuming he gets a 10/$20 deal he would end up being paid somewhere between 1/4 to 1/2 of their total yearly payroll (given last 10 years). Good for small-market teams locking up star players, but man, that is a ton of cash for anyone-- more so for one of the 5 smallest markets in baseball.

In a move that clarifies the bench while removing their only credible LH bat off same, 3B Juan Francisco has been dealt to the Braves for minor-league starter turned reliever J.J. Hoover. Francisco had poor spring exacerbated by showing up overweight and injured, and was out of options. GM Walt Jocketty noted Hoover has "three options and a power arm - a good combination", which tells you all you need to know about the deal.

In a somewhat surprising move, the Reds sign 2B Brandon Phillips to a 6 year contract extension worth $72.5 million. Conventional wisdom suggested that the earlier signing of 1B Joey Votto to a 10 year $225 million contact would not leave any money in the budget to resign Phillips. The Reds' opening day payroll this year was $82.2 million; AAV of the 2 contracts represents over 42% of that figure. It will be curious to see how this affects roster decisions going forward.